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Jackson Pollock and Nicolas Carone

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NICOLAS CARONE: JAZZ, POETRY, AND JACKSON POLLOCK_______________ _

by Frank Messina

May 2, 2012

"If you want to know about Jackson Pollock, you must speak with Nicolas Carone," the voice on the phone said.
"C-A-R-O-N-E,” then hung up. So began my brush with history, a
year-long quest for what I could not find in any book, museum, gallery
or art institution: face time with perhaps the world’s last living
authority on abstract expressionism, someone who was actually there when
it all went down.

Nicolas Carone, 2003 - Carone Family Archi

I
first heard of Nicolas Carone in the late 1980’s while studying at
the University of Pavia, Italy where one of his paintings hung in my
professor’s office. At the time, it seemed out of place: a sparse
abstract canvas roughly 20” x 30”, facing the opposite wall where a
glorious reproduction of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s nude male
sketches stared back. “He’s American,” the professor said. “From New
York I think or maybe New Jersey.” Noticing my interest, he removed
the framed painting from the wall. “Take a look. What do you see?” I
held the painting in my hands and studied a myriad of grays which
appeared as shadows, figures, where white pigments spilled into even
more varying shades of gray. I turned the painting over and saw an
inscription on its verso: “Carone / 1949”.

Years
later, Carone’s name would turn up again. However, it wasn’t in the
posh galleries of SoHo or palatial venues of 57th Street where
Carone’s work shares precious wall space with the likes of Robert
Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Pollock. On the contrary, it was in
the basement-level weight room of the New York Sports Club in
Hoboken, New Jersey where my personal trainer, Ricardo, said he once
studied drawing with Carone. I wasn’t sure what to be more baffled
by: a boxer with hands of steel and a twisted nose having an
interest in the fine art of drawing, or that Carone was still
kicking. “He’s around?” I asked. “Oh yes, he’s in his eighties, still
painting too.”

The
timing seemed uncanny. As a jazz-influenced poet, performer and
history buff, I made it a task to learn everything I could about the
relationship between jazz, poetry and the experimental painting
methods of the 1940’s and 1950’s, later referred to as
“abstract-expressionism”. I even made a trip to Jackson Pollock’s home,
now the Pollock-Krasner House in East Hampton, NY where the
director allowed me to peruse through Pollock’s actual vinyl record
collection: Coleman Hawkins, Thelonius Monk and Charlie Parker among
others. I was in awe. At that moment, I decided to start the
Pollock-Jazz Project: an in-depth study and cataloging of jazz music
recordings as they relate to Pollock’s oeuvre of iconic drip
paintings.

However,
problems developed quickly as I discovered no primary living source
on Pollock: no actual trusted friend or colleague. That was until
Ricardo in the gym tipped me off to Carone’s living in New York City,
and later, my call to the Washburn Gallery—representative
of the estates of both Pollock and Carone, who emphatically urged me
to contact Carone should I want more expertise on Pollock’s life, and
his art.

On
a cold November morning in 2006, I telephoned Carone and was
overjoyed when he accepted my request for an interview and invited me
to his studio at the Westbeth Artist Community in Manhattan’s West
Village. I prepared by diving into a plethora of information on the
artist: articles, critical reviews, and video-taped interviews. The
man I saw in the video and spoke with on the phone was articulate,
lucid, extremely knowledgeable and witty as any artist I imagined
coming from an arena so ill-reputed for experimental drug use and
excessive drinking. When I pulled up to 155 Bank Street, Carone was
standing at the icy curb.

"It's
so fucking cold out," Carone said, white tufts of hair sprouting
from under the wings of his winter cap like miniature snowdrifts. I
climbed from my car and was greeted by a wide smile and a firm
handshake. "I'd like to get some breakfast," he said with a
distinctive smoker’s rasp. Although, a trip to the diner was not
planned, I embraced the gesture of spontaneity. I insisted on helping
the 89-year old into my car, but he waved me off, opened the door
himself and slid into the passenger seat.

“I
don’t move like I used to,” Carone said,
clutching a cane. “But I’m
not one to just hang around. You have to get out and see the world,
even if it means feeling the bitter cold.” By the time we made it
to the Chelsea Square Diner on 23rd Street, Carone - the man who
Jackson Pollock enjoyed so much because of his ability to
articulate, began opening up like an encyclopedia. “I knew I wanted
to be an
artist at a very young age,” Carone said. “From my days in Hoboken,
as a young boy, then spending time with artists, musicians, singers,
and a young guy named Frankie Sinatra,” Carone said. “Stop singing,
you’re embarrassing us!” Carone laughed. Those were some great days.
Hoboken.”

Carone,
the second of six children, was born on June 4, 1917 in New York
City’s Little Italy. (His surname is pronounced Ka-ROHN-ay or the
Americanized Ka-ROHN.) His father, a dock worker, was from Altamura,
near Bari, and his mother was from San Costantino Albanese, in
Basilicata. His family moved to Hoboken, New Jersey when Carone was
five-years old. At about
11-years old, Carone began his formal art education at the prestigious
Leonardo da Vinci Art School in Manhattan where he took classes at
night. Hoboken's close proximity to the city provided an easy commute for the aspiring artist. As a
teenager, Carone dropped out of A.J. Demarest High School (as did
Sinatra) to pursue a full-time education in the arts.

Carone
studied at the Art Students League and the National Academy of
Design, where he took classes with the widely influential muralist and
teacher, Leon Kroll. In 1939, Kroll took Carone under his wing and
appointed him first assistant for a massive mural project at the
Worcester Memorial Auditorium in Worcester, Massachusetts. Then, in
1941, Carone won the coveted Prix de Rome for painting from the
American Academy in Rome.

Carone modeling for Leon Kroll, 1936

Shortly
after the US involvement in World War II, Carone enlisted in the US
Air Force and was commissioned to the First Fighter Command at Long
Island’s Mitchell Airfield Air Force Base. During the war years, a
young Carone divided time between making military maps at the
airbase and cultivating his connections in the New York art scene.
There, he was guided by German master-painter Hans Hofmann at the
Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts. Along with Carone, Hofmann taught
American painters Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and
Larry Rivers. This proved to be a crucial time for Carone as his
art dramatically changed from figurative and realistic - portraits
and landscapes - to the experimental and abstract, something Carone
and his contemporaries would champion and be famous for in the years
to come.

After
the war ended in 1945, Carone lived in New York for two more years,
where he, Pollock and other New York based artists continued to
break away from tradition, and instead, experiment with various
methodologies, paints, mediums and pigment applications, garnered
in-part, from a philosophy Carone described as “plastic language”.

“Remember,
when you’re doing paintings, your imagination is working,” Carone said. “The painter goes into a dimension in the mind. Every mark you
make should trigger something in your imagination.” Carone stirred a
cup of tea, added a drop of milk, not to drink but illustrate his
point. “If you look at the sidewalks on a rainy day after the rain,
study all the marks, you see great paintings.” Carone’s eyes blazed
with excitement. “But only an artist can see it. Another guy sees
spots. But as a painter, I look at them all the time.”

In
1947, with money from his Prix de Rome and a G.I. Bill (a housing
fund program for veterans), Carone moved to Italy with his wife, Nell
Mager, and their son, where he set up a work studio in the center of
Rome on via Margutta. There, he continued producing what he describes
as an “enormous amount of abstract” works. The prolific and affable
Carone quickly acquainted himself with prominent Italian artists such
as Pericle Fazzini, Giorgio Morandi and Lucio Fontana as well as
Chilean painter Roberto Matta, who would eventually become a very close
and trusted friend of Carone.

The
late 1940’s in Italy would prove successful for Carone as he would
have his first one man show plus an exhibition at Rome’s Museum of
Modern Art. It would also be the place where Carone witnessed
first-hand the profound effect that he and his American contemporaries
were having on the art world.

At
the 1948 Venice Biennale (a prestigious art festival founded in
1895), painters Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock
were among those featured in the American pavilion. Carone said the
already-famous Italian artist, Giorgio Morandi, visited the American
pavilion and saw Jackson Pollock’s work for the first time. “When
Morandi saw Pollock for the first time, he never knew him, and this is
a painter who had ninety one-man exhibitions in Europe. He looked at the Pollock and said, ‘Wow! Now this is new.’" Emphasizing Morandi’s reaction, Carone widened his eyes and put both hands to his face. "He
didn’t even criticize the painting. He didn’t go with a magnifying
glass and say whether he liked the color. He didn’t criticize that
it had a cigarette butt or a match stick in it, nothing.” Carone
inhaled deeply, then shook his head. “I learned a lot from that
experience.”

In
1951, Carone separated from Mager and moved back to New York.
There, he found himself in the middle of a vibrant art movement
where jazz musicians Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk and Dizzy
Gillespie, writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and painters
Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Pollock routinely gathered at
haunts such as the former Cedar Tavern on University Place. The
movement was launched, in part, by Carone’s prolific work on both
sides of the Atlantic.

In
May of that year, Carone was featured in the Ninth Street
Exhibition. The pivotal show featured numerous prominent New York
artists including Pollock, de Kooning, Kline and Conrad Marca-Relli.

The
event, curated by art dealer Leo Castelli, would be hailed as one
of the most important exhibitions of the 20th century. Carone’s work
would be thrust to the forefront of what critics described as the
“post war New York avant-garde”, and later, “The New York School”.

It
was at this time that Pollock found a home for Carone on Three Mile
Harbor Road in East Hampton, New York, where he’d already been living
since 1945. Carone moved in with his second wife, Adele Bishop, and
their twin boys Claude and Christian.

There,
he and Pollock flourished and experimented, often buying or
bartering paints from local hardware shops or directly from Leonard
Bocour, an acrylic paint developer. Pollock had already been familiar
with experimental paints, taking a workshop with David Alfaro
Siqueiros in 1936, where he experimented with the latest synthetics,
paints and spray guns.And
Carone said Pollock's fascination never ceased, as the two
experimented widely with new paints, including Magna, a form of
acrylic which Bocour had introduced to the artists as early as 1946.

However, the artists were less concerned with the materials they were using than the result they achieved. “A creative painter experiments a lot. I can’t tell you what I do, my God. You wouldn’t know one painting from another on the same day.”

Tube of acrylic Magna paint on Pollock's work table 1951-52 (Archives of American Art)

Carone
also described the time as “volatile” for the already-famous
Pollock. Dealers, hangers-on and groupies began to flock to the East
Hampton hamlet known as the Springs. “Many people knew Pollock, but
he didn’t like them,” Carone said. That the reclusive and
increasingly bitter-tempered Pollock held particular esteem for Carone
proved to be a hallmark of a very special friendship. Carone said
his twin sons, Claude and Christian, were doted upon by Pollock, and
even invited to his studio while he painted. His eyes watering over,
Carone reminisced: “I loved Jackson. He was a wonderful, fanciful
son-of-a-bitch.”

In
1953, Carone became assistant director of the Stable Gallery, a
converted horse stable on Central Park South which became notorious for
hosting a yearly exhibition aptly called the “Stable Annual”.
There, Carone played an important role in recruiting both established
artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Larry Rivers and
Lee Krasner to young, emerging artists such as Cy Twombly and Robert
Rauschenberg. “I gave Rauschenberg his first show,” Carone said.
Rauschenberg would later become one of the most celebrated artists of
the 20th century.

We
left the Chelsea Square Diner and began driving to Carone’s studio.
As I carefully maneuvered the car down icy Ninth Avenue, Carone
continued his first-person art history lesson. “When I first met
Jackson, he was listening to jazz, loud. He loved jazz.” Offering what
he described as a good analysis of how Pollock “poetically responds"
to his methods, Carone turned to simile and metaphor: “Pollock
painted like a shooting star. The shooting star was shining. The
shooting star had sparks flying and the sparks were the drips. That
was the collective unconscious.”

I
asked Carone to expound on the subject. “You see, you’ve got to
understand the philosophical attitude of the painter that's looking for
imagery. The painter is an image maker. He's not a technician. In
fact, he goes against technique. If he smoked, and he smoked a lot,
the ashes fell on the painting, the cigarette butt would hit the
painting but he would use that, take off on it. Very much like the
jazz musicians.”

Carone
suddenly grabbed my right arm. “See those dogs?” he said, looking
toward a woman with a pair of leashed terriers. “Stop here!” One dog
lifted its leg and released its stream toward a fire hydrant,
yellowing the snow bank in its path. Carone waxed poetic on what
would be an ordinary sighting in a big city. “Leonardo da Vinci
must have had a mind that was going a mile a minute. It’s documented
he only slept four hours a night. I’m sure he couldn’t sleep. His
mind was going on so many levels. He would look at the ceiling of
his house, look at the rain marks and say, ‘There, you will find my
dragons.’ He didn’t paint them, but he saw them. Like when you see
piss on the sidewalk.”

I
asked Carone how an artist best goes about translating what he sees
in nature and putting it to canvas, such as the dogs peeing in the
street. “Don’t be fooled by technique or paint quality. Fuck it!
It’s the imagery that goes on. It's metaphoric and it's poetry in a
jazz sense. It’s symbolic and it’s on another dimension. It’s not an
order like Picasso but it’s another dimension, the rhythm of mass.
It’s not the relationship from this-to-this,” Carone said, tapping
his forefinger on the dashboard. “It’s to-that, to-that and it fools
history. It’s rhythm. Rhythm!” Carone implored. “That’s why it’s
good to take a walk sometimes and look at all the stains on the
sidewalk.” His voice reached a crescendo, eyes widened, both hands
outstretched. “Just look at them! Lift your imagination! Open your
eyes!”

In
the 1950’s and early 60’s, Carone enjoyed sustained recognition for
his work, appearing at the Carnegie Institute (now the Carnegie
Museum of Art) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In 1959, he had a
solo show at New York’s Staempfli Gallery. Though teaching
sporadically since the early 1950’s, Carone began full-time in 1965,
amassing a multitude of loyal students, some of whom went on to have
stellar careers such as Chuck Close and Richard Serra.

Carone in his East Hampton studio, Springs, NY, 1957

In
the mid-1980’s, Carone founded the International School for Art in a
functioning monastery in Todi, Italy. Later, he moved the school to
Montecastello di Vibio where Carone guided artists of varying ages in
drawing, painting and sculpture.

On
the subject of teaching, Pollock's name is never too far from
Carone's vocabulary. “Jackson said, ‘what the hell do you think
you're doing by teaching? You can't teach art.’ Oh, I don’t teach
art, I teach language.’” Carone continued paraphrasing Pollock. “You
know Nick, I can never teach. If I had to teach, I would tell my
students to study Carl Jung,’” the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of
Analytical Psychology.

"He
[Pollock] was a Jungian philosopher," Carone said. "His paintings
come out of automatic writing. But they also carry Jung’s unconscious
plane that we're working on to create an image. That image is the
collective unconscious.”

Nicolas Carone, Untitled Abstract, 1952

Carone
said Pollock’s series of psychoanalytical drawings executed in
colored pencils, ink and pen-on-paper in 1938-39 best capture the
artist's initial exploration into the subconscious plane. “Those are
very interesting drawings because you see his mind working, the
symbolic mind. Symbolism is a very intense factor in his career.”
Carone said Pollock, who went to see a psychoanalyst during the
late-1930’s, made the drawings at the doctor’s request. The doctor
would later cash in on his patient’s fame by publishing a book and
selling off most of Pollock’s drawings which today sell for six-figure
amounts at auction. At the Westbeth, we parked in between two piles
of snow. “That psychoanalyst is another little prick,” Carone said.

As
we entered Carone’s studio, an aroma of drying paint and stone dust
came wafting forward. A “family” of odd-shaped portrait paintings
lined one of the walls, and even more on the floor, stacked against
the wall as you'd find in an antique shop. Near the far wall, a large abstract canvas work stood cradled to an easel. On a worktable lay three cube-shaped stone sculptures - immobile, their presence almost inescapable.

As
I approached the behemoths, Carone told me he’d often dug up
stones from his property in Italy. “I have sort of a component of
sculptures,” Carone said. “I would go the field and dig up a stone
and start sculpting.”

Nicolas Carone, Stone Head, Lohin-Geduld Gallery

I
asked him about his work rituals, from painting to sculpture,
figurative to abstract. “I do both. I mean I do the heads like a five
finger exercise,” he said, apparently referring to a violinist’s
practice technique. “And then if I’m working on a big painting, I might
get tired, I want to rest from it. The next day I’ll go to another
part of the studio and do a head.” I asked what makes his "heads"
different from a portrait. He said the people in the paintings are not
real people, but from his imagination. He said they were from
dreams he had: “psychic visions” and “ghosts”. I took a closer look
at one of the heads: a woman with black hair, small mouth, curled
ears, horn-rimmed glasses, but no eyes. “Do you know what I mean?”
asked Carone. “It’s an imaginative head. Because it's image I go for,
not portrait.” Carone remained silent for several minutes as I
fingered through the stack of heads leaning against the wall, some
expressionless, others glaring forward with an agonizing gaze, as if
peering in from another dimension.

Carone
said he was often called upon by art dealers and collectors when a
purported Gorky painting had surfaced. He describes one particular
occasion in the 1960’s with deft and humor, which involved famed art
critic Harold Rosenberg and a high-end art buyer requesting some
expertise on a Gorky painting for sale. “It was at Knoedler Gallery”, Carone said. Formerly located at 19 East 70th Street in Manhattan,
Knoedler was founded in 1846 and boasted such clients as the
Vanderbilt, Astor and Rockefeller families. “It was a big exhibition of
twentieth century drawings, and there was one [particular] drawing
there. It was a gouache. Harry Rosenberg was there and another
collector to buy it. They said, ‘I heard you have a good eye. This
looks like a Gorky. What do you think?’ I looked at it and said, ‘It’s a
Matta.’” Carone said the buyer was stunned, dismayed and replied:
“Oh him, isn’t he academic?” Carone’s laughs bellowed through his
studio. "He didn't know his ass from his elbow."

In
his later years, dealers, collectors, historians, experts and film makers sought Carone’s
“good eye” and his historical expertise, especially when it came to the life and work of his old friend,
Jackson Pollock. For the 2000 film, Pollock, starring Ed
Harris, film makers consulted with Carone for the purposes of historical
accuracy regarding Pollock's life and painting methods. One particular
scene—perhaps
the most poignant in the film, shows Pollock carrying an injured dog
that he found on the roadside in East Hampton. It is a heartbreaking
depiction of a man at the end of his rope, and Carone's account of the
story was beautifully crafted into the film.

But
Carone shared with me a deeper insight into the injured dog incident,
which seemed to haunt him the rest of his life. "He was very sad," Carone said. "He called me up one morning. 'Nick, you know I saw a dog that
was hit by a car. A beautiful dog and I picked him up and brought him to
the vet to save him.' He knew my dog had died—a
German Shepherd," Carone said. "He said, 'Would you like this dog if it
survives?' And I said sure. I never saw him so sad. He was so sad. Not because of the dog, but because he was
depressed." Carone closed his eyes and paused as the memory agonized. "I knew that was the
end," Carone said. Days later, Pollock would die in a tragic,
drunken car wreck.

Carone was brought in as a consultant for another film. But this
time, it would be specifically for the purposes of determining the
authenticity of a purported Jackson Pollock painting. The 2006 film
documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?,
follows the journey of Ms. Teri Horton, a retired trucker who
bought a purported Pollock painting for $5.00 in a thrift shop, and
her attempt to have it authenticated. A fingerprint on the back of the
canvas was first checked out by a San Bernardino, California police
chief. Then, years later, Horton hired forensic art expert Peter Paul
Biro to analyze the fingerprint. What he found was astonishing. The
print matched one on a can of paint in the Pollock studio and on an
undisputed, cataloged Pollock painting hanging in the Tate Modern.
Despite the evidence, some
art connoisseurs, including Thomas Hoving, former director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, did not believe the painting
was authentic. In the film, Carone is brought in to physically inspect
the painting. In a pivotal scene, Carone is asked by the film's
director, Harry Moses, whether or not the painting is authentic. Carone
said he could not determine one way or the other. And with those few
words, the painting remained in a cloud of mystery. After all, if
Nicolas Carone couldn’t tell if it was authentic, then who could?

Carone, 2006

Relaxed
in his favorite armchair in his studio, Carone spoke at length
about the movie, and admitted being less than forthcoming when Harry
Moses asked him about Teri Horton’s painting. "I was worried. I
worried. I was advised not to tell that it is or it isn't." When I
asked who had advised him, he ran his fingers across his lips as if
closing a zipper. He then referred to a particular scene in the film
when the Horton painting is compared side-by-side with an
undisputed Pollock, “No. 5, 1948”, once owned by art collector Si
Newhouse, chairman and CEO of Advance Publications and Conde Nast,
(New Yorker Magazine, Vanity Fair), and more recently, record
producer David Geffen. “The thing is, when they spliced the painting
from Geffen, and they showed it with hers and they put it together
like that. It looked exactly the same. That made me worry,” Carone said. I asked in what way. “In a way that it could've been a
spliced painting. What she had, I looked at the canvas in the back.
You know how you turn the painting, like this, the canvas, you turn
it around,” Carone said, shaping his arms into a square. “All this
on the side is still a continuation of the painting, and it’s cut
there. This part is cut. I think that that painting was cut from
another painting. It’s cut,” Carone said. “As if Pollock cut it?” I
asked. “Yes,” he said.

And
while Carone wouldn't outright tell me whether the painting was
authentic or not, he did offer a cryptic assessment when asked about the
recent offer of $9,000,000 Horton received and refused for the
painting. "I think if she holds out a little more—I think the Teri
painting will go for more than nine million," Carone said.

Being
with Carone was like entering a time machine, but time would have
no meaning in this conversation. At least not on this day, even
though this would be one of the last interviews he would give in his
life.

On
July 15, 2010, Nicolas Carone passed away at the age of 93. When I
heard of his passing, I rolled back the tape. And the lingering
questions echoed: who "advised" Carone not to say what he really
thought of the Horton painting? And why?

And what did Nicolas Carone really think of it? To some people the answers may come as a shock. To others, no surprise.

When
I told Claude Carone about
my 2006 interview with his father, and some of the revelations and
unresolved
questions garnered from my research, he agreed to an interview. “Meet me
at the
Lohin-Geduld Gallery,” fired Claude. “My brother Christian is coming and
gallery owner Ro Lohin.” We figured
on an hour meeting. But over a year later and a dozen of hours of audio
tape, I realized this was more than an interview. This was an historic
gold mine. And it needed to be shared.

Carone in his Rome studio, 1950

On a gorgeous April afternoon, 2011, I visited the Lohin-Geduld
Gallery to meet Carone’s fraternal twin sons—the ones theartist told me so
much about, who both have accomplished careers in the arts themselves; Claude is a painter, Christian, a photographer.

I arrived early enough to peruse the spartan Chelsea
establishment, which at the time was featuring a solo exhibition of
Chinese-born artist Ying Li. There were a handful of people milling about the
lobby, a bespectacled man with a clipboard, studying closely the canvas
impasto, writing in shorthand, no doubt an art critic. Hanging on an adjacent wall was a framed picture—a work on
paper. A familiarity greeted my eyes. In the lower right
corner, a signature: “Carone”. Resting against the wall were two more Carone
paintings, seemingly pulled from a back room for an impromptu viewing.

“Those are Nick's paintings,” the voice said from behind
me. Claude Carone bears a striking resemblance to his father: classic
Italian facial features, salt and pepper hair, slight build and an infectious,
creative energy that glows around him. “His whole life was about searching for
images,” Claude said, eying his father’s mixed media paintings.

A
few minutes later Christian joined us in the lobby. While clearly his
twin—separated by a mere five minutes, Christian speaks at a slightly
slower pace than Claude. A photographer by trade, he's an observer. And
like his brother, he's dedicated to preserving his father's legacy.

"This
is Ro Lohin," Christian said. Lohin isn’t just any art dealer. She is a
former student of
Carone and an accomplished artist with numerous exhibitions and awards.
Upon meeting her in the presence of the Carone sons, it was not
difficult to notice the mutual respect they shared for each other. A
loyal friend
with a business prowess, Lohin is entrusted by the estate to represent
Carone’s
most important works on paper and sculptures.

After
making our way to Lohin's office, I asked the Carones about their
father's approach to painting, and quickly discovered the twins' uncanny
knack for completing each other's sentences,
especially when it comes to the subject of their father’s blazing
imagination.

“Sometimes
his imagination got quite extreme,” Christian said. “I think some had
to do with—” Claude finished the sentence: “Being a painter. He was
always finding situations. He would take off on it. Once you get into
that state of mind, you can go anywhere and find situations in nature
and go off on it,” Claude said.

Nicolas Carone, Untitled Landscape

"He borrowed from the mystical, from Blake, from
poetry," Lohin said. "It's automatism. You start painting with your
mind," Claude said. Carone described in great detail the concept of
"pulling an image" from nature, with the help of the pigment itself. His
sons expounded on the subject, particularly in regard to their father's
use of unusual pigments, and in some cases, paints which were
unavailable to the general public, if not completely outlawed.

"He
worked with everything he had," Claude said. "In the 1940's and 1950's,
he was very concerned with lead paint," Christian said. "A
lot were using commercial paints. They were based with lead and zinc,
hardware store inexpensive paints. They bought it by the
gallon. The action painters used whatever was available. They weren't
thinking of archival aspects. Now you see many of the
paintings with cracking problems," Claude said.

"I remember going to Brooklyn, we went to this place that made lead
paint for the Navy. I remember driving Nick there and picking up the
cans and it felt like it was a gold brick," Christian said. "Thousands
of bags of pigment. Fifty-five gallon drums with 'U.S.N' stamped on
them. Deadly stuff," Christian said.

"When was this?" I
asked. "The 1970's," Christian said. "Was this paint available in the
40's and 50's during your father's time?" I asked. "Yes," the twins
said in unison.

And they affirmed that their father carried
that tradition into his later years. "As he became older, he would even
unknowingly throw acrylics in with oil and mix it and they would
coagulate." And the results: "A lot of it ended up being really a great
effect by coagulating and not sticking in certain parts. It would be
experimental," Christian said.

Nicolas Carone, Shadow Dance, acrylic on canvas, 84" x 119.75"

But at his best, Carone was five artists in
one: a classically trained artist, a sculptor, a violin player, a
figurative painter, and an abstract expressionist. And his approach is
perhaps best captured in Shadow Dance, an enormous work on canvas that resembles his smaller works on paper.

I
asked Ro Lohin about the works on paper, where they fit into Carone's
oeuvre. "They're probably the closest works that relate to his late
paintings," Lohin said. "And what about the paper?" I asked. "He
used a wide variety of materials. Sometimes the paper would give out
before he could develop an image. But this is such beautiful, handmade
Italian paper." Claude said the material, which was given to his father by a
friend in Italy, is highly absorbent and holds together quite well when
the pigment is applied. This accounts for Carone's later prolific
period of works on paper. "In one day he would make fifteen attempts," Claude said.

The
result: numerous gouache, gesso and mixed media paintings on paper. And
his "automatism" seemed endless, punching out black and white lines,
drips, coagulation, and sometimes within the chaos, misshapen figures,
that hearken Michelangelo and Goya. "Pollock and Matta got him into
that," Claude said.

I asked about their time in The
Springs in East Hampton, in the house that Pollock found for their dad.
"We were surrounded by artists all the time," Claude said. "Pollock,
Marca-Relli, Jim Brooks, and de Kooning occasionally." Living in one of
the most creative circles in modern history—the New York School of
artists, both Claude and Christian said it was not uncommon for
Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Jack Kerouac or poet Allen Ginsberg
to be present at parties they attended with their father. But the two have a
very distinct, cherished memory of the Springs: being in Pollock's
studio as he painted. "Jackson would put you on his knee and tell you
stories. But de Kooning had no time for children," Claude said.

Carone
would later rent the same house to de Kooning in 1965. "In fact, when
de Kooning stayed in our house in East Hampton, 1965, when
he left, my mother was cleaning out the house. We found about forty
pages of his hand-written journals."

The Carone house, Springs, NY.

I asked Claude what was in the journals. Without
being specific, he said de Kooning expressed in his writings that he was very angry with certain dealers.
"Just like Pollock, he grew tired of the bullshit," Claude said. "What
kind of bullshit?" I asked."The politics of the art world, dealers were
starting to come in," Claude said. The journal is now part of
his family archives, he said, and he has no plans yet to divulge them to the public.
"And your lasting memory of Jackson Pollock?" I asked Claude. "He was the nicest guy out of all my dad's friends."

We discussed the film, Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock,
in which Carone was brought in by producer, Harry Moses, to give his expertise in whether or not the
painting is authentic. "In my interview in 2006, I asked your father
about the Ms. Teri Horton painting. He stated: 'I was worried, I was advised
not to say whether it is or it isn't.'"

"That was my
doing," Christian said. "That was your doing?" I asked "Yes.
Definitely," he said. "I mean, here you have the only living authority
who personally knew [Pollock] him." Ro Lohin, who had been silent for
several minutes, asked the question: "What did he think? Do you know what he thought?"

"He told me that he thought it was real," Claude said. The silence permeated the room as if a gavel had been dropped.

Carone and Matta, Tarquinia, Italy, 1990's

Moments later, I asked Christian why he advised his
father to not say what his true feeling was about the painting. He said
it was to protect him. "He was nervous, he thought it was real, I told
him I thought it was real. I mean here you have the scientific proof
that looks pretty damn good and then you have the Geffen painting. How
can that painting be so close and so removed in a certain way too?"
Christian and Claude differ in their opinions in how their father
handled the situation. "I think he should've told them what he thought," Claude said.

Horton holds no animosity
toward Carone. On the contrary, she's left with a poignant and fond
memory of the legendary artist. In a recent interview, Horton—a retired
trucker with a penchant for stiff drink and vulgarity, spoke the words
of a poet when recounting her meeting with Carone at the film's New York premier. "We talked very
little about the painting. But we had a great time telling adult jokes.
When it was time to bid our goodbyes with big hugs, Nick looked in my
eyes and said: 'Miss Teri, promise you won't give in or give up.'"

"'I
promise', was my reply," Horton said. "Finally, I understand. The boys
were right to advise their Dad not to get caught in the cross-fire that
would engulf his remaining days."

I contacted the
film's producer, Harry Moses, and shared the revelations with him. Moses
did not seem surprised. "I think all of this makes sense," Moses said.
"The Pollock-Krasner Foundation maintains that every single
Pollock has been accounted for. If you look at Pollock's life, you would
find that hard to believe. I sent a certified letter to Pollock experts
Eugene Thaw and Francis V. O'Connor requesting an interview for the
film. Both declined," Moses said.

In July, 2010, New
Yorker Magazine published a devastating article by journalist David
Grann, who crafted Peter Paul Biro, the forensic expert who matched
the fingerprint on the back of Teri Horton's painting to a paint can in
the Pollock studio, as a criminal. The
article is now the subject of a massive federal defamation lawsuit
involving a dozen media defendants, one of which has already settled
with plaintiff Biro. Moses, a world renowned investigative journalist
and former
producer of the "60 Minutes" news program, suggested
Grann, and New Yorker Magazine—a publication reputed to employ
ironclad fact-checkers, mistakenly put too much credence on a questionable
source—even "fraudulent", as the lawsuit alleges. "I felt very badly
for
Paul, particularly because
it was written by a friend of mine. I don't think David's got a mean
bone in his body," Moses said. "But I think he relied too much on
Theresa Franks. She's been largely discredited," Moses said. In a 2011
interview, Franks—an art dealer from Arizona, claimed she was a
"catalyst" for the article, a claim Grann neither confirmed nor denied,
but has been cited by legal experts as the defendants' "Achilles' heel"
in the multimillion dollar lawsuit, which is currently pending in U.S.
district court.

It wouldn't be the first time journalists got it wrong.

In Steven Naifeh's and Gregory Smith's book, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga,
an account of Carone's meeting with Giorgio Morandi in Venice omits
Carone and replaces him with art dealer, Catherine Viviano, says Claude
Carone. "They interviewed my father about meeting Morandi in Venice.
They had it
all written down and we had the transcripts. But when they published the
book they took Nick's name out and put somebody else in there. The
writers did that. I still
have the original transcript, and I wanted to sue the bastards. I
got really angry about that," Claude said. Despite the writers' fictional account, the book won the 1991
Pulitzer Prize in biography and was later used, in part, as the basis
for the 2000 film, Pollock, starring Ed Harris.

On
several occasions, Carone expressed frustration with the media, and
critics, for failing to get the facts right when it came to the legacy
of his contemporaries. "I've seen history being manipulated in our
time," Carone said in the 2010 documentary, Nicolas Carone: Pushing Tradition.
And as he told me in 2006: "I can't stand it when they say, 'Oh he's a
fifties painter, or he's a sixties painter.' Bunch of crap!" Carone said.

Carone
leaves a legion of devoted students. One of them, Noreen Naughton, an
artist living in Hawaii, has cataloged his teaching methods, and
philosophy in a manuscript entitled, "The Teachings of Nicolas Carone:
Master, Artist, Teacher". The project spans decades and includes
interviews, illustrations, notations and transcripts. Naughton says
there's much more to add, including interviews with him in his home in
Hudson, New York, where the artist lived his remaining days.

I
asked Naughton what made Carone such a special teacher. "Students were
devoted to Nicolas because of his charisma and especially because his
statements about art and life always rang true. As a way to illustrate
this, it was these qualities that attracted Jackson Pollock as he and
Nicolas developed a friendship,"Naughton said.

Claude Carone, left, and brother Christian, Washburn Gallery, NYC

In February, 2012, Washburn Gallery held an
exhibition of Carone's paintings from the 1950's. I attended the opening
reception and was greeted by a very proud Claude and Christian Carone
and also gallery owner, Joan Washburn. Some of Carone's most important
works were exhibited, including Idol, 1958, Untitled, 1957 and an impressive oil on paper, mounted on panel painting: Untitled 1958.

I
was glad I arrived early. Within twenty minutes, the gallery was packed
with people: friends, family, dealers and of course, Carone's former
students, some noticeably grey-haired. But young or old, every single
one of them had a spark in their eyes—that same magical spark Nick had
in his eyes as he told me about jazz, poetry, and Jackson Pollock.

It
seems that anyone who had contact with Nicolas Carone loved him. Being
hailed a great teacher and having impressive success in the art
market—his paintings sell for six figures at auction, are major
achievements for any artist. But equally important is the uncanny
ability to make friends, and keep them forever. It's an intangible
quality that transcends success, and has left an indelible impression on
a new generation of great artists. It's the stuff of legend. It's
priceless. And it's what Carone so richly possessed.

Washburn
Gallery clearly understands this. So, it was no wonder that Carone's
exhibition was complemented by the presence of the work of his dear
friends who he knew so well, and who loved him: Jackson Pollock and
Conrad Marca-Relli.

Perhaps that's what Jackson Pollock meant, in part, when he said to Carone: "You've got it Nick.

All
photos and text are copyright protected and may not be copied or
disseminated without the expressed written consent of The Estate of
Nicolas Carone, Frank Messina, the Archives of American Art and the
Artist Rights Society.

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Who The #$&% is Michael Wilson?

"Michael Wilson" is the pen name of award-winning poet, artist, actor and journalist Frank Messina. Messina and his work have been featured in the New York Times, Beloit Poetry Journal, New York Magazine, on PBS, BBC, SNY-TV and on hundreds of stages around the world. Baseball fans refer to him as "The Mets Poet". He is a member of the National Writers Union - Journalism Division and serves on the Creative Advisory Board for the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence Project, Orlando, Florida.
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